Black's advantage

As I have heard, the player with the black pieces has a clear advantage over the opponent. To mitigate this a bit, I have heard the option that at the beginning 3 pieces (2 black white) should be placed on the board by someone. *How does this system actually work, who places these pieces there? *How much does it improve the situation?

Yes. This is also discussed on Wikipedia . The solution would be to change gomoku to Renju. How many users would like that?

If you do rendzu, you should still leave gomoku so that beginners can practice on it. Rendzu is too complicated at first. This is the reason for the 3 buttons. But I would like to hear comments from specialists in the field.

Actually, if it were possible, we could of course also add renju gomoku here!

Yes, black has the advantage in gomoku that he can not only win for sure, but even win in many different starts (he can move black's 2nd piece to more than ten different points and have a proven win in all cases. Professionals generally don't have all these wins in mind, but the general logic is enough to cope with quite a bit of thinking time. There are 2 ways to equalize the game: 1) Play with the rendzu rules, i.e. deny black some combinations and play with a color change. 2) Play with the gomoku rules, but the first player places 2 black and 1 white piece at the beginning, after which the second player decides whether to continue with black or white. This is then gomoku with a color change. As a player, I am a big fan of the rendzu rules. Forbidden combinations for black, or foils, create new exciting and charming aspects to the game, i.e. white can start attacking black's forbidden points. As an organizer and promoter of the field, however, if I had to choose between adding rendzu or color-changing gomoku, I'm not so sure anymore. Learning the rendzu rules is of course not a big problem for a serious fan, but initially only a handful of people would start playing here (the number would increase if it were made understandable to foreigners). At the same time, color-changing gomoku could be played by both professionals and beginners. Of course, I wouldn't mind if both options were available here in the future (in addition to the most common gomoku) :), but as a programming layman, I can't imagine how much effort it takes to do these things.

Yes, over time, all three variants could emerge. But for now, I personally think it's essential to have a color-changing variant alongside the regular gomuk.

Programming shouldn't be left behind in the sense that everything can be programmed. It's just a matter of time.

Question: do you have to be able to place these three pieces on a 19*19 board at the beginning? Or can it be on a smaller, e.g. 5*5 grid (then the middle part of the large board)? Is there a strategic difference there? I ask because I'm thinking about the implementation. I propose a solution that already in the invitation window the user can choose where to place these 3 pieces. However, a 19*19 board in the invitation window stretches this invitation window quite large :) When you start the game, these placed pieces would already be on the board. One more thought: I definitely won't make a separate game - in the gomoku invitation window you can choose whether you want to play regular gomoku or gomoku with a color change.

There is no need to place the pieces before the game. Before the game, you could still only choose the starter, the one who starts placing the pieces, i.e. by choosing black. The color change already means that black does not get a good position, because it can be taken away. My personal opinion would be to simply add the color change checkbox to the beginning. But with the question of whether you can use the experience square to place the first three pieces, I think you should consult Antsu or someone here who knows whether starting from the ntx corner can also play out some advantage, etc.

The problem is in the implementation. It is much easier if the inviter determines the location of these buttons and the invitee then decides whether he wants to play color swap with the inviter under these conditions and chooses his color right there in the invitation window. Why is this solution not suitable?